The ruling was the result of a lawsuit brought forth by Stephen Thaler, who was looking to copyright ‘A Recent Entrance to Paradise’, an image he created using an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm he built and named the Creativity Machine.

Thaler had tried multiple times to copyright the image “as a work-for-hire to the owner of the Creativity Machine,” listing the author as the creator of the work and Thaler as the artwork’s owner. 

However, his request was rejected by the US Copyright Office on the grounds that “the nexus between the human mind and creative expression” is a crucial element of protection.

Now a judge has upheld the decision, as first reported by The Hollywood Reporter.  

In her decision, Judge Howell wrote that copyright has never been granted to work that was “absent [of] any guiding human hand,” adding that “human authorship is a bedrock requirement of copyright”, even as it is channelled through “new tools or into new media”...